In his first interview as government CIO, John Suffolk
identifies a dearth of skills as a key challenge facing Whitehall's
IT-enabled change programmes.
When John Suffolk was asked whether government could handle the
present level of change, he was silent. Eventually he replied,
"That’s a tough question to answer."
As the new government chief information officer – giving his
first interview with the media since starting the job in June –
Suffolk had to choose his words carefully.
This is because the barons of Whitehall, who include directors
of communications, frown on civil servants who tell it like it
is.
When Steve Lamey, CIO of HM Revenue and Customs, revealed last
year that his department was sending millions of letters to the
wrong addresses in part because it had poor data on taxpayers, his
minister and public relations specialists reacted swiftly.
As a result, directors of HM Revenue and Customs are now asked
to clear their public speeches if they plan to say anything about
life in their departments. Lamey has said nothing similar
since.
Suffolk, like Lamey and Joe Harley, CIO of the Department for
Work and Pensions, joined the civil service from the private
sector; and it shows. He is straightforward even when talking to
journalists, indicating perhaps that he has not been in Whitehall
long.
On the important question of whether government can cope with
the present level of changes, Suffolk said, "Being a new boy I do
not have full visibility in terms of where every department is. I
think it is fair to say that the level of change we are going
through is at the top end of anyone’s capability – in the private
and public sectors."
He added, "Our biggest concern is not about cash, it is about
the amount of skills we have in government, and in private sector
organisations."
Many of the 50,000 IT specialists in the public sector are
grappling with high-risk IT-based reform costing billions of pounds
in the NHS, education, pensions, criminal justice, police
intelligence, defence infrastructure and immigration.
There are also complex programmes to support the introduction of
identity cards and biometric passports – projects that involve
large-scale changes in working practices.
"This is not just about outsourcing everything to a third
party," said Suffolk. "You still need all the same change
management people in house, the same accountability in-house. We do
not have enough; we do not have enough people in terms of
competence, and that is why government is running its professional
skills agenda [to increase the number of people with the right
skills]."
Some people will be surprised that the government is attempting
radical IT-based change when there is a shortage of the right
skills internally and externally. Yet there is every sign that
ministers and mandarins are still keen on big high-risk programmes,
apparently the bigger the better.
Last week the Home Office published a review of the Immigration
and Nationality Directorate which indicated that, like the
Department of Health, it wants to be seen as a risk-taking
world-leading pioneer.
The review of the immigration service said, "We will become a
leading implementer of technology within government for new
information and knowledge management systems, particularly for
identity and tracking technologies."
In recognition of the risks, there is a Cabinet subcommittee,
called Paxe, which is chaired by the minister Stephen Timms, a
former employee of the IT company Logica. The subcommittee
discusses on a regular basis plans that involve major changes in
departments, said Suffolk.
But it has not stopped the NHS’s IT programme running into
trouble, delays in the processing of online passport applications,
payments to farmers being held up, or the administration of the
Home Office becoming chaotic, its systems being so poor that
auditors were unable to conduct an annual audit.
As a troubleshooter on such projects, Suffolk seems a good
choice. His reputation as a pragmatist and a clear thinker is
reinforced by his use of language that is noticeably free of the
platitudes beloved of Whitehall. He avoids for example Whitehall’s
catchphrases such as "e-government" or "transformational
government".
Suffolk also recognises the importance with risky programmes of
the need to debate how well you are discussing the problems, and
whether you are ticking boxes on a risk register instead of
properly confronting a programme’s real difficulties.
But the diagnosis has been known for a long time: Whitehall
needs to change its culture of not telling it like it is. The
problem is the treatment. Can one man, even John Suffolk, change a
culture that dates back centuries?
The challenges ahead for the new government
CIO
- One of John Suffolk's challenges is helping to establish e-mail
systems that work together despite different security levels. At
present departments have separate e-mail systems at different
levels of security, which do not talk to each other.
- Suffolk plans to cut the costs of the Cabinet Office's
E-Government Unit. It employs about 100 people, down from a peak of
some 200, and Suffolk wants to reduce the number to about 75.
- Programmes that fail to meet their objectives often have a high
turnover of leaders, according to Suffolk. He also said it was
important that top people in departments and agencies have more
time to discuss the implications of IT-based change programmes.
Topics should include the way risks are being mitigated and how
decisions are made on changes to contracts.
- Public sector CIOs are considering whether to use a citizens'
database built by the Department for Work and Pensions - the
Customer Information System - as their main name and address
database. This would mean that only one system need be kept up to
date with changes in names and addresses. HM Revenue and Customs is
considering standardising on the DWP database, so that tax systems
would access it to retrieve names and addresses.
- Suffolk wants savings from IT programmes to be demonstrably
genuine. If the savings are included in financial submissions to
the Treasury, budgets to the department or agency may be reduced by
the savings achieved.
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